College Students with Learning Disabilities (SWLD) and Their Responses to Teacher Power

Abstract

The negotiation of classroom power continues to engage scholars given its considerable impact upon pedagogical practice in the college/university classroom. As Sprague (1994) points out, the issues surrounding classroom power are complex and important because they impact the life of the classroom for both students and teachers. The complexity and importance of this topic become even more profound when we include additional variables such as learning disabilities. Prior research has focused on how students with learning disabilities (SWLD) perceive competent and incompetent communication (see Cornett-DeVito & Worley, 2005); these perceptions are likely, in large part, related to how teachers of SWLD negotiate power.

While extant literature reports many challenges in communication between college instructors and students (see Worley, 2000), and while persons with disabilities have been traditionally perceived as citizens with less power and in need of protection, research has yet to consider the specific issue of classroom power and SWLD. This article offers a first step in consideration of this important issue by providing a review of power in the classroom literature, a theoretic orientation for conceptualizing this research, as well as a phenomenological investigation of student perceptions of teacher power.

Keywords:

• Learning Disabilities
• Student Perceptions
• Teacher Power

Paper presented at the 89th Annual Convention of the National Communication Association, Miami, FL, November 22, 2003.

Notes

This manuscript was accepted by the previous editor, Professor Jim L. Query.